Acrid smoke, gunfire, and the frantic clatter of combat boots.
In the heart of the battlefield, soldiers with grim expressions moved toward enemy lines, each armed to the teeth.
Red Team: four. Blue Team: five.
Word had come in that one of the enemy had gone AWOL for reasons unknown, and Blue Team's morale was through the roof.
And apparently, that foolish deserter was the enemy team's ace.
This was a fight they absolutely could not lose.
They'd put a bullet in that silent deserter's forehead back at base while they were at it.
Blue Team's spirited advance charged the battlefield with tension.
No snipers. Just charge, charge, charge.
Concentrating firepower with a numerical advantage turned out to be pretty effective.
The simultaneous assault sent Red Team into a panic.
Blue Team grew more and more certain that victory was within reach.
Right in the middle of their slaughter—
"AAAARGH—!"
"What's happening?!"
"It's him! It's him! He's back!"
A teammate's frantic radio call—the sleeping tiger has opened its eyes—sent a chill through the ranks.
A legend for a reason.
The enemy soldier everyone had been talking about was single-handedly reducing their side to rubble.
Blowing teammates' heads off one after another, like a tiger roaring, *Your little party is over!*
Was this really a comeback…?
How were they supposed to stop that monster?
God, please watch over us.
Perhaps those desperate prayers reached the heavens.
Thud—
"It's him! He's stopped moving!"
"Kill him! Kill the bastard!"
They managed to take down the ruthless monster who had slaughtered three allies in the blink of an eye.
But—
"Pick up the pace—the pace! If he comes back again, I can't guarantee anything."
The moment they'd had a taste of his firepower, the current odds stopped mattering.
All they could think was: finish off those 70 kills and get out of this gunpowder-soaked hellhole.
Bullets rained down for a good while after that.
[62:55]
The commander stared at the merciless scoreboard that reduced soldiers' lives to numbers.
Just eight more kills. Then it was over.
But.
Bang—!
[Woniwoni>.< ︻デ═一 reconnecting]
A sharp, piercing gunshot rang out across the hellish battlefield.
The signal that he was back.
"Right. Like it was ever going to be that easy."
Life never lets you off the hook.
"He's back! But—we're almost there, don't flinch!"
According to radio chatter, the weapon he was carrying was a Winchester (Win34).
Each shot hit hard, sure, but it wasn't exactly suited to holding off the sheer volume of fire from a squad of rifles.
*Let's move to terrain where sniping isn't easy.*
"Charge!! Advance to the most cover-heavy area you can find—avoid the sniper!"
Under the commander's orders, Blue Team pushed toward the complex terrain where snipers were known to struggle.
And there, they came face to face with the enemy.
Right. This was better.
If it turned into a messy brawl where everyone was killing and dying, Blue Team would hit seventy kills first.
The commander could practically see the victory medal gleaming before his eyes.
But sadly.
Bang—! Bang—!
"What?!"
The thunderous crack of a sniper rifle—a sound that should have been coming from far away—was right in front of him.
"AAAARGH—!"
"He—! He brought the sniper rifle down himself!!"
The cheers of victory curdled into screams, and the commander's jaw trembled.
"Wh—what is this?! This is rifle terrain! He can't do this!"
*Miss a single shot and you'll get shredded at close range—and he's using a sniper rifle here?!*
Click—!
He loaded his heavy assault rifle and headed into the fight himself.
*I'll take this monster down with my own hands.*
He waited at the front lines, surrounded by death cries, for any sign of the enemy.
Then—bang—! The familiar sound rang out.
"You—!"
*How dare you touch my teammates!*
Blue Team's commander lunged out from cover, rifle aimed.
He thought he'd gotten the jump at the perfect moment—
But the enemy's long barrel swung toward him with terrifying speed.
BANG—!
The shot rang out without mercy, and the commander crumpled, coughing blood.
*This… can't be.*
Monstrous. Reflexes that could only be described as animalistic.
As his vision blurred and faded, the last thing he saw was a pair of rabbit ears, completely out of place on a battlefield, fluttering in the air.
Before he knew it, the scoreboard read [68:69]—a comeback.
And then.
[DEFEAT!]
One monster, arriving late to the fight, had turned the tide after all.
The commander, swallowing the bitter taste of defeat, decided to leave his hardworking teammates with one final word.
[AnglerTV: lmaooo gg everyone, rough one out there. Woniwoni really is something else.]
Even in defeat, Angler was already in a good mood thinking about the NuTube edit.
***
The moment Mom left the room, I jumped straight into the game and got moving.
Thanks to my teammates holding their own, the gap wasn't as brutal as I'd feared, and we managed to scrape out a win by the skin of our teeth.
"Phew, thank goodness. Right?"
I genuinely thought we were done for!
If I do say so myself, my situational reads were clean.
*People need to know how great I am.*
"When the kill score is that far apart, you have to minimize your own deaths while maximizing your kills, right?"
I rattled off an explanation for the viewers.
"In situations like that, a sniper is the obvious answer—but the whole enemy team had rifles and was pushing for close range."
So what do you need in that case?
"That's exactly when the Winchester comes in. It can hold its own against rifles charging in, but it's also defensive enough to fall back on."
Genuinely educational content, this stream.
Strategy *and* execution, all in one.
After wrapping up a brief lecture from their Diamond 2 (projected) sensei, I opened the chat.
Surely everyone was applauding my triumphant performance?
— Change your name from Duel King to Cow Dung Queen Chaechae
— hey you little gremlin apologize first
— those ears those ears are weird slaying me slaying me
— chaechaeiturnedonmycomputersoundbutthestreamisntplayingwhyisthis chaechaeiturnedonmycomputersoundbutthestreamisntplayingwhyisthis chaechaeiturnedonmycomputersoundbutthestreamisntplayingwhyisthis
— you little fox,,, acting all innocent,,, i want to bite you,,,
— why are we winning this;;
— stop hyping the Winchester, there's been weirdos showing up in my ranked games lately
— I lost my hearing listening to this stream
"Oh."
Uh oh.
I'd been so focused on the game that I'd completely forgotten about the chat.
*Right, I'd been streaming the vacuum cleaner noise the whole time.*
But honestly? Fair is fair.
They messed with my mic settings first.
Still, I didn't moderate the spam and chaos.
Just like I had the right to commit audio terrorism, they had the right to type whatever they wanted.
*If I just ignore the chat and play a few more rounds, won't things settle down on their own?*
What they needed was time to calm down.
I'll be the bigger person here. Goodness.
I shook my head side to side.
I was debating whether to queue up another match when—
Ding—!
[Momoji — ₩20,000: Hello ^^ Do you have a moment?]
The oddly polite tone, nothing like a regular viewer's, made me double-check the name.
A really familiar name… wait—
"Momoji?"
That's Momoji?
The one person who actually read my long-winded advice in chat when everyone else was dismissing it as spam. The angel who took my side when the whole world was calling me a sniper.
*Even if she did perform an autopsy on my chat messages, betrayed me, and humiliated me in front of everyone.*
I couldn't sleep that night. Kicked my blanket around for hours.
Seeing Momoji's name gave me this weird mix of feelings—happy and annoyed at the same time.
Whether I liked it or not, even I couldn't tell.
Was this puberty?
"What do you need…."
I asked, just a little sulkily.
[Momoji — ₩1,000: Hehe, you know that favor I asked before? Can't you give me some tips?]
Tips?
I'd always given tips with great care and sincerity…
Even that day I got autopsied, I went in with genuinely good intentions.
I was all ready to write a glorious wall of text and got ambushed instead.
Too embarrassed to ever set foot in that channel again.
"Well then…."
So it's not free anymore.
[Momoji — ₩1,000: I see, taking on a master requires payment. What's your rate?]
"Hmm?"
She's asking me to name my price first.
She absolutely reeks of easy mark.
I decided to personally teach her the lesson: *That's how you get taken advantage of!*
Something I need right now that's also hard to come by… yeah, that'll do.
"Ranked… give me Arena Coins and I'll do it."
Coins!
I need the Arena Coins you get from ranked matches.
I don't have nearly enough because I haven't played that many ranked games.
Customizing my dedicated weapons takes hundreds of Arena Coins, but the maximum you can earn per match is just six.
Right now I had barely over 160.
[Momoji — ₩1,000: Huh? Not a donation? Actual Arena Coins are fine?]
"Yes! How many can you give me?"
[Momoji — ₩1,000: Hmm…. I think I have around 500 left, want those?]
"Wait, seriously? Yes yes yes yes."
Heh heh.
She's giving me these precious coins just for some Dead Zone tips.
500 coins—I couldn't save that many in over 100 matches.
*Yesss, time to deck out all my dedicated weapons!*
"Hehe."
— just a gamer through and through
— coins over a cash donation….
— probably shouldn't mention she could get more by spending that money on microtransactions huh
— she's so genuinely happy lmaooooo
— if Chaechae's happy then I'm happy….
Hmph, donations don't mean much to me anyway.
Now, should I start with the Winchester (Win34) or the MF5?
I found myself humming a little tune without even realizing it.